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The Cosmos and Carl Sagan

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." ~ Arthur C. Clarke

A good way of understanding the compulsions of Carl Sagan’s life-long affair with thecosmos would be to look at the great spiral galaxy in Andromeda. Part of our Local Group of 30galaxies, this breathtaking cosmic spectacle is estimated to be 200,000 light years in diameter.To an astronomer, it is tantalizingly close…a mere 2.2 million light years away from our owngalaxy, the Milky Way. It would take a ray of light from this galaxy—travelling at its usualspeed of 186,000 miles per second—only 2,200,000 years to reach Earth: a distance of 13thousand quadrillion miles! It is our nearest galactic neighbour in an ever-expanding universethat may contain considerably more than the 125 billion galaxies posited by astrophysicistsmonitoring the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. But we may never know: as the universeexpands and galaxies recede from us at speeds approaching that of light, we will not see them astheir light would never reach us. Galaxies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and ages, and may range from dwarf galaxiesof fifty million stars to giants like Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A, a gigantic elliptical galaxy 2

some sixty million light-years from Earth), which may be comprised of up to three trillion stars,as compared to ‘only’ four hundred billion in our (barred spiral) Milky Way galaxy. A dim ideaof the immense size of Carl’s cosmic playground begins to form. This was his home turf forabout forty years as physicist, astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, philosopher and teacher. It takes a special sort of person to function simultaneously in all these roles. Quite apartfrom the rigorous academic grounding and discipline required, the mind must be trained toregister the astronomical scales involved, and to realize that, as one peers into the sky, one isactually looking back at a distant past, to things as they were billions of Earth years ago.Cosmological problems need to be re-examined, a priori, in the light of latest discoveries,theoretical models constructed, and conclusions reached. The universe is a big place: thecosmologist usually decides his area of area of interest and proceeds to single-mindedly devotethe rest of his life to it. Carl Sagan developed a wide-angle vision that accommodated the wholepicture. He focused narrow, moved the field around rapidly, and thought w-i-d-e. He was born Carl Edward Sagan in Brooklyn, N.Y. on November 9, 1934. After a self-confessed ‘unremarkable’ school experience, he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees inphysics (in 1955 and 1956 respectively) from the University of Chicago, following them up witha doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics (in 1960) from the same institution. Before coming toCornell in 1968, where he became a full professor in 1971, he taught at Harvard University. It was perhaps due to his penchant for teaching that this yearning to share his vision withothers developed into a best-selling book, and landmark television series, both called simply‘Cosmos’. It is not an easy feat for a cosmologist to step down from the stars and speak of themto ordinary men. To convey the excitement of events that happened far, far away and long, longago, in an engaging and comprehensible manner, is not a task for the faint-hearted. Few havesucceeded. Carl Sagan did…beyond his wildest dreams. The book’s publisher had planned aninitial print run of 10,000, with total print-job estimated at 50,000 copies. It sold in millions!Cosmos (1980) was the best-selling science book ever published in English, staying on The NewYork Times bestseller list for 70 weeks! It became the most watched series (it was seen by more than 500 million people in 60countries) in public-television history, capturing the public imagination and winning Emmy andPeabody awards. A television audience is critical and fickle, apt to quickly switch channels at thefirst sign of ennui. Carl’s audiences clamoured for more, hypnotized by his soft, relaxed delivery,smooth narration, supreme command over his facts, and superlative picturization. His sincerityand obvious love for his subject were infectious. He became an overnight celebrity to a globalaudience as, starting with the ‘Big Bang’ (estimated to havehappened about 14 billion years ago), he showed how hugeclouds of hydrogen, drawn together by gravitational forces,condensed into stars, and how those stars created inthemselves the heavier elements, only to spew them billionsof miles into space when they exploded. Over eons, thematter thus created condensed and re-condensed into galacticand planetary systems. He portrayed the march of astronomy as Man cameto understand the solar system, and the uniqueness of theinsignificant little ‘pale blue dot’ we live on (he persuadedNASA, launching Voyager I, to get the cameras to look backand photograph Earth from beyond Neptune, millions of 3

miles out in space against the dark cheerlessness of the void). “Our planet is a lonely speck in thegreat enveloping cosmic dark”, he wrote in ‘Reflections on a mote of dust’. “In our obscurity – inall this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-buildingexperience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceitsthan this distant image of our tiny world”, he cautioned. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the HumanFuture in Space appeared on best-seller lists all over the world and was selected as one of the"notable books of 1995" by The New York Times. He showed how rare was the home-planetthat Man – in his supreme ignorance – treated so shabbily. Equally rare was the life that hadevolved on it. ‘The Dragons of Eden (1977), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978, presented hisviews on human evolution.

He was convinced that there was intelligent life elsewhere in universe, but was definitelynot the first astronomer-philosopher to make such speculations. As early as 95 BC, Lucretius ofRome wrote "...since infinite space stretches out on all sides, it can be in no way considered thatthis is the only heaven and earth created... ...we must realize that there are other worlds in otherparts of the universe, with races of different men and different animals... ...don't be frightened bythe novelty of an idea...”

Similarly, the sixteenth-century philosopher Bruno observed "... …there is not merelyone world, one earth, one sun, but as many worlds as we see bright lights around us (in infinitespace)... it is impossible that a rational being... can imagine these innumerable worlds...destituteof similar or even superior inhabitants..."

However, despite the endless attempts through the platform of SETI (The Search ForExtraterrestrial Intelligence) project, not a shred of acceptable evidence could be found for lifeelsewhere other than on Earth. “The significance of a finding that there are other beings whoshare this universe with us would be absolutely phenomenal, it would be an epochal event inhuman history”, he once said wistfully. The failure all the more aroused his reverence forterrestrial life, and made him a vocal anti-nuclear war protagonist. He coined and popularized theterm ‘nuclear winter’…the after-effects of a light-absorbing, post-nuclear-war cloud that wouldterminate photosynthesis, and ultimately, all life on Earth. “The flip-side of not finding life onanother planet is appreciating life on Earth,” he emphasised. His book Contact, and the motionpicture of the same name (completed after his death under his wife’s supervision) based on thebook, negotiates this subject. Now the world's foremost science popularizer, he reached out to people everywherethrough the media. He was catholic in his tastes and his books cover not merely (!) science buthis views on a wide range of subjects. Broca’s Brain and Billions and Billions are compilationsof articles and lectures that skip from football, chess, and the possibility of life on Mars to globalwarming, international relations, and abortion. He steadfastly maintained his belief that we cantransform our own lives: “We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and thedepth of our answers”, he felt. Carl Sagan always thought of man’s origins in cosmologicalterms. “Starstuff, calling to starstuff…across ten billion years!” were the goose-bump-raisingopening words of Cosmos, predicting Man’s drift to the outer planets en route to the stars. Sagan began researching the origins of life in the 1950s and went on to play a leadingrole in NASA’s interplanetary missions, designing experiments for the Mariner, Viking, 4

Voyager, and Galileo space probes. Focusing on planetary research, he predicted the greenhouseeffect on the super-heated Venusian surface, the chilly Martian surface that Mars probesconfirmed, and the presence of large bodies of water on Titan, Saturn's moon, where, he felt, lifemay flourish. "We have looked close-up at dozens of new worlds. Worlds we never saw before,”he said. “And unless we are so stupid as to destroy ourselves, we are going to be moving out tospace in the next century. And if I'm fortunate enough to have played a part in the firstpreliminary reconnaissance in the solar system, that's a terrifically exciting thing." "We haveswept through all of the planets in the solar system, from Mercury to Neptune, in a historic 20(to) 30 year age of spacecraft discovery," Sagan once said. As Man ventures out into the cosmos,the extent of Carl’s contribution to cosmology and on human society will continue to unravelitself. But the years of toil had taken their toll on his personal life, wrecking twomarriages. Then, when he was in his 47th year, he met and married Ann Druyan. The fairytaleromance lasted fifteen years, till his death. Definitely his soulmate, she collaborated with him onmany of his book and other projects. Ann Druyan wrote later that their obviously deepcommitment to each other imposed a kind of ‘oppressive tyranny’ on other team members whoseown relationships were hardly in the same league. Then the fragile bubble burst. Carl wasdiagnosed as suffering from myelodysplasia, a form of anemia also known as preleukemiasyndrome that obliged him to undergo several bone-marrow transplants from his sister. As thedisease gradually dragged him down, Sagan clung to his dream of Man drifting to the stars. "Wewill look for the boundary between the solar system and the interstellar medium and then we'llvoyage on forever in the dark between the stars”, he said. Prophetic words, indeed. He maintained his innocent atheism, however, even in the face of death. Some peoplewere skeptical of this attitude: "Many of them have asked me”, he explained, “how it is possibleto face death without the certainty of an afterlife. I can only say that it hasn't been a problem.With reservations about 'feeble souls,' I share the view of a hero of mine, Albert Einstein: 'Icannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind thatwe experience in ourselves. Neither can I – nor would I want to – conceive of an individual thatsurvives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts.I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure ofthe existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny,of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.'" In the epilogue of Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death on the Brink of theMillennium, Ann Druyan later wrote: "Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there wasno deathbed conversion, no last-minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or anafterlife." She rejoiced that many people had written to say that Carl's example had inspiredthem "to work for science and reason, against the forces of superstition and fundamentalism.These thoughts comfort me and …allow me to feel, without resorting to the supernatural, thatCarl lives." A grateful planet showered him with recognition. The awards are almost too numerous tolist. They include the NASA Apollo Achievement Award for his significant role in NASA’sMariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions to other planets, two NASA Medals forDistinguished Public Service, and NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement award. Amonghis other awards have been: the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the AmericanAstronautical Society; the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award; the Konstantin TsiolkovskyMedal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation and the Masursky Award of the American 5

Astronomical Society. He also received the prestigious Public Welfare Medal, the highest awardof the National Academy of Sciences, "for distinguished contributions in the application ofscience to the public welfare." He was chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of theAmerican Astronomical Society, president of the Planetology Section of the AmericanGeophysical Union, and chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science. For 12 years, he edited Icarus, the leading professional journal devotedto planetary research. Yet he still found time to teach at Cornell! He received 22 honorary degrees from American educational institutions for hiscontributions to science, literature, education and the preservation of the environment. Manyawards accrued to him for his work on the long-term environmental consequences of nuclearwar, reversing the nuclear arms race, and the origin of life on Earth. He co-founded ThePlanetary Society, the largest space-interest group in the world with over 100,000 members. Thesociety supports major research programs in the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence, theinvestigation of near-Earth asteroids and several unique projects including a solar sail that wasdue for launch in 2001 but faltered without him, and the development of robotic exploration ofMars. He was also Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the legendary JPL (Jet PropulsionLaboratory) in California. He was contributing editor of Parade magazine, which publishedmany of his articles about science and about the rare form of cancer he had to fight. Right till the end, Carl Sagan maintained his atheistic integrity. He lived and died the firstsentence of Cosmos, the book: “The cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there everwill be.” (Now please read the Bhagavad-Gita, chapter VII, verse 7, and chapter IX, verse 4).Though he professed to be an atheist, it can also be maintained that, in celebrating the creation,he probably ended up celebrating the creator. It is a measure of his humility – not arrogance –that he was content to marvel at the product, eschewing the presumption of genuflecting to itsproducer. He was happy – indeed overjoyed – with his cosmic toy. On December 20, 1996 at Seattle, Washington, USA, with anxious messages pouring infrom all over the globe, gently holding his true love’s hand, Carl fell back into the Cosmos fromwhich he’d sprung. Starstuff returned to starstuff, rejoining the mainstream of the GreaterScheme of Things.

There comes a time, for blessed few,

When the veil parts, and anew The soul, unfettered, roams afar, In the playground of the stars.